President Dmitry Medvedev warns the US over the New Start treaty during his Federal Assembly address

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Georgy Bovt, Special to RN

11:28AM GMT 05 Jan 2011

The whole foreign policy portion of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s third annual address to the Federal Assembly was aimed at one single country: the US, says Georgy Bovt

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s third annual address to the Federal Assembly provided at least a few surprises and left political analysts divided over the key message. But the main question is still the same: is there any more clarity now concerning 2012, when Russia’s next presidential elections are to be held?

After the curtain fell, opinions differed. Some thought that Mr Medvedev’s 75-minute address was little short of a stump speech, because he let his pet topics of modernisation and innovation take the back seat while focusing on issues that have long been popular with the electorate. The address emphasised social issues, such as housing, pensions, welfare, public-sector salaries, and social support for families – primarily those with many children. The spotlight fell on the president’s initiative to grant land plots free of charge to families that have a third child (the birth of a second child is already “awarded” a £6,000 investment from the state called the “mother’s capital”).

Some believe that such cash-for-babies programmes are not the most effective way to combat a demographic crisis. Sceptics point to a pan-European trend showing that a rise in well-being follows a decline in the birth rate, while, in contrast, the birth rate in poorer countries remains high. That said, the calculations of Russian social scientists show that, against all odds, Russia is a country where handing out “bonuses” to parents has proven to be an effective way to drive up the birth rate among families across economic levels. Russia has, in fact, seen an increase in births after the mother’s capital law was enacted.

In the case of the plan to give plots of land to families with many children, it could benefit the country even if local authorities try to avoid allocating the best land, or if the families have no money readily available to build. The programme would put more land into the marketplace, which is important given that up to 99pc of Russia’s land is still owned by the state.

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I would disagree with those who saw the address as a stump speech: if it was serving that purpose, it would have needed more emotion, more slogans and more promises. On the contrary, the president spoke calmly and thoughtfully as he outlined the day-to-day work ahead.

Mr Medvedev said almost nothing on political reform. Kremlin sources explain this by saying that the key milestones have been achieved, and have been discussed in a previous address: the number of signatures parties need to secure to appear on the ballot has been cut; their access to the media has been made easier; the right for them to participate in advisory bodies attached to regional legislative assemblies has been granted, together with the right to speak there at least once a year; the ability to use the state machine during elections has been restricted; and early and absentee voting has been more tightly regulated.

Although many liberal opponents view all of these steps by Mr Medvedev as half-hearted, he has so far shown no desire to take them any further. That’s because he most likely believes in the gradual momentum of such changes, rather than in an explosive (and thus subversive) approach to them.

Moreover, he spoke about the political process at a meeting with parliamentary parties, including the opposition, the day before he delivered his address. At that meeting, his headline message was that Russia’s political stability is becoming stagnant. The term “stagnation” has been used in Russian political discourse before – during the era of Leonid Brezhnev in the Seventies and early Eighties – and became synonymous with the Soviet system’s decline.

The president added one finishing touch to the already-introduced changes to Russia’s domestic political system: a proposal to introduce municipal party list-based elections. On the ground, this should first and foremost benefit the opposition parties, as the ruling United Russia party holds close to 99pc of seats through the majority election system.

The whole foreign policy portion of the address was, in effect, aimed at one single country: the United States. The Russian leader let it be known in no uncertain terms that should the US Senate refuse to ratify the New Start treaty or to accept the proposals made at November’s Nato summit in Lisbon to combine the Russian and US missile defence systems in Europe, Moscow will respond with “proper” military steps, such as installing assault rockets in European Russia.

Two days later, the prime minister, Vladimir Putin, echoed his words in an interview with Larry King on CNN. He also mentioned the threat of a new arms race if New Start isn’t ratified and American missile defences are stationed in Europe without co-ordination or co-operation with Moscow. The foreign policy portion of the address thus appears to be a synchronised message from Russia’s ruling “tandem”.

The speech as a whole reflected the same synchronicity. That is why President Medvedev’s third annual address doesn’t contain so much as a hint of an answer as to what he prefers to see himself doing after 2012.

The “tandem”, it would seem, prefers to keep its options open for the time being.